


I Need You Some of the Time

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, i see this happening somewhere mid season 1, okay not really but it's dang close, so let's run with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14063511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: For the dialog prompt "I'm flattered that you're jealous".“Is that so?” she said, not bothering to hide the edge on her tone as she scrubbed under her nails where some of the blood had crusted.“So you just delayed coming back to camp for a few hours to help her out?”“Is that a problem?” he asked, a hint of defensiveness on his voice.“So,” Clarke scrubbed harder, “Roma needs help shooting and Roma gets some practice, but the rest of the camp is expected to just carry on?”“Clarke, I—”“Roma,” Clarke continued, not really resenting the girl, but trying to make the point clear, “needs help and so she gets hours out of your day; Roma gets your time and energy. Meanwhile I’m here, trying to keep us afloat, and when I need help, Bellamy Blake is nowhere to be found.”





	I Need You Some of the Time

“You’d better get out here.”

Clarke was inside the drop ship, stitching up Monroe’s arm where she’d slashed it open on some rocks down at the river, and she looked up wearily at Raven’s words.

“Now?” Clarke asked, looking pointedly down at the open wound on Monroe’s arm, and the spread of bandages and gauze around her.

“Now,” Raven said emphatically, holding the tarp open. The sound of angry shouts drifted into the dropship and Clarke rolled her neck, before smiling reassuringly at Monroe.   

“Hold this here, okay?” she said gently, rising to her feet and pressing the gauze onto her arm, “I’ll be right back.”

She followed Raven out of the dropship, letting the tarp fall closed. They reached the scuffle—really, there wasn’t a better word—just as they moved into the pushing phase and Clarke tried not to roll her eyes. What was it about being on the ground that reduced them to playground fights?

“This had better be more important than Monroe’s stitches,” she called across the yard and everyone’s eyes snapped to her as she stopped at the edge of the impromptu ring.

“Uh-oh, you guys made mom mad,” Murphy announced, and Clarke shot him a glare before turning back to the two in the middle of the circle.

“Well?” she asked, looking between them.

They were looking at each other, trying to decide if it was worth explaining whatever petty confrontation had started the affair and Clarke again repressed the urge to roll her eyes.

“One of your friends is in there, with a gaping hole in her arm, and I have to be out here, keeping you from throwing a punches at each other. So either get it over with—break a nose, split a lip, whatever you need to do to get yourself in med bay too—or get back to work. I have better things to do than play mediator.”

Everyone looked around sheepishly, and Clarke raised her chin in a challenge to the two in the ring. They didn’t reconcile, but went back to their respective jobs. Clarke looked around the circle and everyone split off, heading back to their jobs as well, before she moved slightly to intercept Octavia.

“Where’s your brother?” she asked quietly.

Octavia looked down quickly, before meeting Clarke’s eyes. “I don’t know, I—”

“Don’t lie to me, O; I’m in a mood. Where is he this time? I have a patient and if he were here like he was supposed to be, I could be helping her.”

Octavia had the grace to look guilty at the blood on Clarke’s hands, and she swallowed slightly. “He went out on a perimeter check,” she admitted quietly.

Clarke frowned. “The last perimeter check would’ve gone out with Monroe; he should be back already...”

She trailed off when she realized Octavia wasn’t making eye contact.

“Who else is on that patrol?” she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You know what, no, it doesn’t matter. Tell him when he’s done playing Romeo, I’ll be in the med bay.”

Octavia nodded slightly, and slipped away, seemingly grateful to avoid any further questioning about her brother, and Clarke sighed before heading back to Monroe.

Another day in the life, another reminder that the camp really needed two people to run it, and Bellamy was off somewhere else, literally gallivanting in the woods. And it wasn’t the first time, either. For the past couple of weeks, he’d been busy at odd hours, never around the camp, and nobody was willing to tell her where he was, or who he was with, which only left so much to the imagination.

But it was fine.

She was fine.

Just another day on the ground, another day of pretending that they weren’t a couple of bad decisions away from being grounder meat, or from running out of their own food.

It’d be a hell of a lot easier to pretend if her ‘co-leader’ would actual show up to, you know, co-lead.  

Clarke told herself that it had nothing to do with the fact that her feelings for Bellamy had been... confusing, as of late.

She hadn’t expected to trust him, much less tolerate him, and yet in the weeks since they’d first landed on the ground, she’d grown to do both. And then some. She appreciated the nonchalant way that he broke up fights, the weight his words carried. The way he always seemed to know what she was thinking, the way that he always thought about what was best for the camp, not her.

In a way, she was grateful that he’d been scarce lately, because it reminded her that whatever change of heart she had, it was one-sided.

Because when he kept his distance, Clarke could pretend that she was upset on behalf of the camp. And that her own feelings were very clearly, obviously, unequivocally, not involved.  

Monroe seemed to pick up on her mood, and Clarke gave her a grateful smile when she finished the stitches. When the girl ducked out of the bay, Clarke dunked her hands in the water basin in the corner, washing the blood off of them. She heard the tarp fall open and then closed again, and she tried not to read too much into the fact that she recognized Bellamy by his footfall.

“O said you wanted to see me?” Bellamy’s voice echoed around the empty med bay, and Clarke pursed her lips, not wanting to turn to face him just yet. Maybe she could just keep by the bucket, and not have to look him in the eye as she delivered the inevitable _do whatever, or whoever, you want in your spare time, not when the camp needs you_ lecture.

“Yeah,” Clarke said determinedly. “How was the perimeter check?”

“Fine,” Bellamy said, and she could hear him shrugging, “We took a bit of a detour so Roma could get some target practice in.”

Clarke bit her tongue; of course it was Roma who was the partner today.

“Is that so?” she said, not bothering to hide the edge on her tone as she scrubbed under her nails where some of the blood had crusted. “You just delayed coming back to camp for a few hours to help her out?”

“Is that a problem?” he asked, a hint of defensiveness on his voice.

“So, let me get this straight,” Clarke scrubbed harder, “Roma needs help shooting and Roma gets some practice, but the rest of the camp is expected to just carry on?”

“Clarke, I—”

“Roma,” Clarke continued, not really resenting the girl, but trying to make the point clear, “needs help and so she gets hours out of your day; Roma gets your time and energy. Meanwhile I’m here, trying to keep us afloat, and when I need help, Bellamy Blake is nowhere to be found.”

She heard a rustling and she knew he was crossing his arms. “I’m flattered that you’re jealous,” Bellamy said dryly, and Clarke bristled at his sarcasm, “but I’d appreciate if you’d tell me what you’re upset about, instead of just biting my head off.”

Clarke’s whirled from the bucket. “Oh, don’t pretend like you don't know—”

The words died in her throat as she turned to face him. She’d been right; his arms were crossed and his expression was the definition of defensive, but she hadn’t anticipated the gash down the side of his face. She couldn’t suppress the current of worry that ran through her, and the question escaped without her consent. “What happened to you?”

Bellamy blinked, surprised by the change in tone in her voice, and trying to figure out what she was referring to. She watched it register, and he shook his head shortly. “It’s nothing, I just—”

“Sit,” Clarke interrupted, pointing to one of the beds.

“Clarke it’s fine, it’s—”

“It’s bleeding, is what it is,” she cut him off again, “The last thing I need is for you to get infected.”

Bellamy’s jaw worked for a minute, then he relented and crossed the room to take a seat. Clarke walked over to the workstation, picking up a jug of one of Monty’s concoctions and a clean rag, then followed Bellamy to the bed. He looked up at her uncertainly and Clarke looked down at her hands.

She was mad at him, she reminded herself.

He was playing hookie when she needed him today, and she was mad at him.

And she was not at all affected by how close he was.

“Monroe had a nasty gash in her arm today,” she said, her tone clipped, dipping the rag in the alcohol and Bellamy eyed it warily.

“Is that going to sting?” he mumbled.

“Probably,” she said cheerily, before continuing with the story. “Nine stitches, right down her forearm.”

She wiped at the gash on his face, and he hissed sharply. Clarke pursed her lips; she wished she could feel some sort of satisfaction for it, but really she just felt bad. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“S’fine,” Bellamy said gruffly. “Is Monroe going to be okay?”

“In a week or ten days, yeah,” Clarke folded the rag over, relieved at how shallow the cut was, once she’d cleaned it. “I had some trouble stitching her up though.”

“Why,” Bellamy broke off when she pressed the rag over his face again, “Why is that?”

“There was a fight in the middle of the day,” Clarke said, focusing on cleaning the cut, tilting her head to the side to check for anything more dangerous. “I had to break it up, in between stitches four and five.”

“Who do I need to talk to?”

Bellamy asked it immediately, and Clarke’s gaze shifted from the cut to meet his eyes. He was watching her intently, and Clarke swallowed at the intensity in them.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

He was supposed to be callous about not being there, not looking like he was upset at whoever had caused her trouble. Because him looking like he cared made it a whole lot harder for her to pretend that she didn’t.

She flipped the rag over her shoulder and crossed the room again, needing the distance as much as she needed some gauze. “I took care of it.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Clarke looked back at him, feeling the weight of his eyes from across the room. She pulled the rag off her shoulder and set it on the table, picking up the gauze and fiddling with it. “I didn’t mean to go off on Roma like that,” she said quietly. “But it would’ve made a hell of a difference if you’d been here, instead of with her.”

She looked up to see his response, and watched a dozen different emotions play across his face, and he finally blanched. “Wait, you think—”

“I don’t care,” she interrupted hurriedly, telling herself that she meant it, “what you do or, um, with whom. But I need you some of the time, Blake. The camp needs you, okay?”

Bellamy was quiet as she crossed the room again, pressing the gauze to his face. She felt his eyes on her, but she determinedly avoided them. It got a lot harder when one of his hands came up to circle the wrist that was tending to his forehead.

“Clarke, look at me.”

His voice was low and Clarke clenched her jaw. There was no way to avoid him, but she lifted her chin when she looked down at him, determined to hang onto at least some of her pride.

Bellamy looked like he was choosing his words carefully. “Okay, I know it probably seems like—”

“ _Nay it is; I know not ‘seems’_ ,” Clarke muttered, determined to resist the earnestness on his face by whatever means necessary.

The corners of Bellamy’s mouth twitched upwards. “Macbeth?”

“Hamlet,” she corrected.

“I should’ve know that,” Bellamy frowned slightly, before shaking his head. “Regardless, you should know that Roma and I weren’t shooting today.”

Clarke felt something like panic rising up within her. It was one thing to suspect what Bellamy was doing, it was something else entirely to be standing over him, his hands holding her wrist, and have him tell her specifics.

“Bellamy, I really don’t want to hear this.”

“No, you do,” he insisted, shaking his head. “We weren’t doing anything...um, well, anything really.”

Clarke pursed her lips. “Okay, I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but I really don’t—”

“Monty set up a farm,” Bellamy blurted, and Clarke stuttered to a stop.

“What?”

“That red seaweed? That we used to help Jasper back when we first got down here?”

“I remember,” Clarke said, thoroughly confused, “We practically burned through the supply from that stream.”

“And you’ve been wishing we could find some ever since,” Bellamy finished for her, somewhat proudly, and Clarke frowned.

“Yeah, but none of the replantings took; we weren’t able to get any more of it to grow.”

Bellamy nodded earnestly. “We found a new batch. Monty diverted water from the river and we set up a little pool so we could—”

“The point, Bellamy?” Clarke interrupted.

“Right,” he nodded, his eyes finding hers again. “We made it work. We’re growing red seaweed, growing it like crazy. It takes a lot of time, though, and Monty has stuff to do around here, so I’ve just been dipping out and taking care of it.”

Clarke’s frown deepened. “You’ve been playing farmer? Why wouldn’t you just tell me; we could put it in the rotation, gotten a couple other people to help?”

Bellamy looked down, his expression sheepish. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“What?”

“When we ran out of the first supply, you had to go back to working twice as hard to heal everyone. And I didn’t want to get your hopes up, in case something happened to the farm, and I thought it’d be better to just show you when it was done...”

He trailed off.

“You...” Clarke wet her lips, “you’d do that for me?”

Bellamy huffed, still looking at the ground. “Stupid, I know. It’s pretty useless for me to try to do this thing, when what you really needed was for me to be here. I thought I was helping; I didn’t know—”

“Stop that,” Clarke interrupted gently, feeling like an idiot.

Bellamy lifted his head and they spent a moment regarding each other. A million emotions were written across his face, and Clarke knew hers was probably the same.

She eventually realized that his hand had slipped; no longer were his fingers around her wrist, but they’d travelled down her hand, and were intertwined with hers. His thumb was gently stroking the back of her palm, and she looked down at their hands.

“I should’ve been here,” he said at length.

Clarke tilted her head. “Yeah,” she agreed, but she didn’t say it angrily.

“God, I’m sorry,” he said in a rush, “I’m so sorry, Clarke. You already keep everyone alive, and the least I could do is be around some of the time, to try to pretend like I’m helping.You don’t deserve that.”

Clarke gaped at him, shocked by the words coming out of his mouth. Yeah, she’d needed him around, but she wasn’t resentful of why he was gone. In fact, the opposite was true. “Bellamy, you’re doing a good thing; that seaweed is going to help so much. It’s going to make treating people so much easier; it could actually be lifesaving.”

But he was quiet, and he still didn’t look up.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she tried again, but still he didn’t raise his eyes.

“Okay, then,” Clarke said casually, “I’m sorry, too.”

Bellamy’s eyes flew to hers, his expression near panicked. “No, you can’t be—”

“I am,” she said, shrugging. “I should’ve asked instead of assuming. I also shouldn’t have freaked out about Roma.”

“Yeah, but—”

“So if neither of us thinks the apology is merited, can we move on?” she said pointedly, a smile forming on her face.

Bellamy looked like he wanted to push the issue, but his jaw clenched and he nodded slowly.

“Okay,” Clarke said uncertainly.

“Okay,” Bellamy said, equally so.

They didn’t let go of each other, and Bellamy’s eyes were steady on hers this time. They stayed that way for a while, hands joined, touch tentative.

There was so much to say, and so little worth the risk of saying.

The red seaweed would help with treating wounds, but it wouldn’t solve all their supply needs. They still had to worry about how they were going to get through winter. And whether the wall would hold if the grounders tried to attack again. And how many mines Raven could plant or bullets they could scrounge together.

There was a lot that was uncertain.

But standing there, her fingers held tightly in Bellamy’s calloused ones, Clarke found herself smiling. Because of all the uncertainties, the alliance between the princess and the king wasn’t one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Talk to me in the comments, or over on [tumblr](http://the-most-beautiful-broom.tumblr.com/) ♥


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